wildlife

By Erica Cirino There are many people who believe whales and dolphins do not belong in aquariums and marine parks, and for good reason: When you put a large, highly intelligent animal that naturally travels a hundred or more miles a day into a small concrete tank, the results aren’t pretty. The animals suffer increased […]

Earlier this month the nations of the world met to decide on how to deal with the sale of wild animals and their parts. Yes, that is still the relationship we have with them. Highest on many minds was the most acute driving force behind the most talked-about, most widely cared-about conservation issue on Earth […]

In decades of birding, the best viewing two naturalists have ever seen of a very rare bird Photos by Carl Safina, text by John Turner Tipped off by a phone message from Carl Safina who was watching Common Nighthawks foraging over the Seatuket Mill Pond on Long Island, I headed down around 5:00 o’clock in the […]

It’s easier to accept that elephants, dolphins, wolves, and dogs have personalities. What’s surprising — until you make individual acquaintances — is how deep and widespread the phenomenon of personality is. When you work with hawks, say, you see that each responds a little differently, each hunts a bit differently. I define personality as individually […]

A handy guide to the words you need to know to talk about the ways animals think and feel. Try to discuss non-human animals’ thoughts or emotions, and you quickly run into trouble. The main problem: there are no widely agreed-to definitions of things like consciousness or sentience. So people talk past each other. Often, people […]

Why the social brain is the most intelligent brain Dolphins and humans have not shared a common ancestor for tens of millions of years. Yet for all the seeming estrangement of lives lived in liquid, when they see us they often come to play, and we can recognize in those eyes that someone very special is […]